


What Technology Can't Fix

by vassalady



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony doesn't know why his relationship with Steve turns sour, and this time, it isn't about what he ever did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Technology Can't Fix

**Author's Note:**

> VERY MINOR SPOILER WARNING for the Avengers: A location, a Hulk event, and something I implied from a little detail. Also, the bad guys, if you didn't know there were any other than Loki. Otherwise, this is pretty much what I would have written prior to seeing the film.
> 
> Another Warning: a bit self-indulgent

Steve had been distant. That was probably a polite way of putting it. But Tony was afraid of saying it any other way.

Tony woke in bed alone. Steve's side was cold. It was still the middle of the night. Steve must have left as soon as Tony fell asleep.

"Stupid," Tony muttered to himself. After all these weeks, Steve having sex with him once was not going to fix everything.

He went to his lab. JARVIS greeted him, commented on the early hour, and Tony told him to shut up. JARVIS complied. He turned up the music, again proving how useful sound proofing the lab had been. With a stubborn determination, he set about tuning up his latest suit.

Within twenty minutes, someone entered. "Tony," Bruce said over the loud music. Tony dropped his tool, swearing.

The music decreased, and he glared at Bruce. "What are you doing here?" he said as he fiddled with his things, trying to look busy. The truth was he wasn't doing much. The suit was near perfect as it was for now, and he was too frustrated to concentrate on it.

"I was working, " Bruce said. Tony watched him take in the suit and the spare parts that were strewn about. To the others, it would look like something complicated, but Bruce was a man after his own heart (in a non-arc reactor sense, and with a stronger emphasis on biology, but the sentiment remained.) "The rest of the tower might not be able to hear you, but I'm next door."

"Right." Tony wasn't feeling pleasant. "So what were you doing this time? Turning mice into mini-Hulks? Learning to clone people? Are we going to mold the aliens to death next time?"

A look came over Bruce's face that said he was actually considering that one. Tony had to accede that foreign bacteria could pose a serious threat to invaders. But after a brief moment, Bruce said, "So what's wrong this time?"

"This time? What do you mean this time? I never said anything was wrong."

Bruce crossed his arms. "This is the eleventh time in three weeks you've taken to late night tinkering."

"I'm always in here at night." Which was a lot less true since he’d started dating Steve.

"That suit's perfect, and you know it."

"Near perfect." Tony could do so much more with it. Not now, maybe, but eventually.

Bruce sighed, and Tony resented him for it. When he was angry, he could go green and smash stuff in the desert. Tony had to be reasonable, and if "tinkering" was all he could do, then so be it.

"Have you just tried talking to him?" Bruce said at last.

"Who?" He wasn't going to let this be easy.

"Steve. Everyone's noticed." So Bruce was going to take the hard route, too. Good.

"Noticed what? There's nothing to notice."

"He has his own room again. You don't go out. You don't look ridiculously self-satisfied all the time. Was the sex not good enough?"

Lackluster at best last night. "Leave my sex life out of this."

"Get it together, Tony. You can't be distracted on the job."

"And you're so good at not being distracted. Tell that to Natasha someday. Or maybe that girlfriend of yours who you almost got killed."

That was low even for Tony. Although both women had long ago forgiven Bruce, he still blamed himself. But he watched with a grim satisfaction as Bruce took several deep breaths, fists clenched. "Look," he said, "deal with it, okay?"

Bruce left, and Tony made faces at his back. Deal with it? Yeah, sure, he'd deal with it, as soon as Steve decided to come and talk to him about whatever had crawled up his ass.

"Fuck this," Tony said. He needed to get out. He put on the suit and sped away from the tower. They could call him in Monaco tomorrow morning.

 

None of the Avengers tried to contact him except Bruce, and that was only once. He left a message that just said, "Talk to him."

He didn't bother listening to Pepper and Rhodey's messages.

He stayed away for two blissful weeks where nothing happened, and he vindictively slept with several different people who were not Steve. He might have called out his name during sex once or twice, but he was too drunk to remember.

Eventually, Pepper called him back from his self-pity vacation. "This is exactly the kind of behavior that drives people away," she said as they flew back to New York. It was true. It had ended their own engagement.

"Whatever." Tony stayed slumped in his chair, his sunglasses covering his eyes. He still had a hangover, and Pepper wasn't letting him into the alcohol supply. When had his flight attendants started listening to her instead of him?

What really got to him though was he hadn't done anything this time. Steve had started being obnoxiously not there all on his own. And he didn't know why.

A note was taped to his desk in his lab.

_Last time: talk to him. If you don't, then you have no right to mope any longer._

 

"I need to run some diagnostics on your shield." Dumb excuse, but Tony wasn't the kind of person to say, "Can we talk open and honestly about our feelings?" Not unless Pepper was strong arming him into it or he was dying.

Steve had been sketching, and he appeared caught off guard by Tony. "Oh, yeah, sure," he said, and he looked clearly uncomfortable. That made Tony feel a little better. At least he wasn't the only one “moping.”

He did some checks just for hell of it. Once, he was a little less than careful, and Steve said, "Watch it!" Tony shrugged him off.

"So..." Tony said. He didn't know where to go from there. Talk to him. Like that was easy. "What's been on your mind lately?" Tony did not look at him and continued to study the balance of the shield.

"Tony, I don't know if this is the time."

"The time?" That pissed Tony off. "Would it have been the time a couple weeks ago when we last had sex? Would it have been the time weeks before that when you moved out of my room? Or how about when you first started not talking to me?"

"Look, I've had a lot of things to think about," Steve said, and Tony finally looked at him. Steve looked angry, but hurt, too, and he couldn’t dare try to look hurt right now. This was his fault.

"You never said anything. No reason why. Just started doing as you please. I don't know how they did it in the forties, but today, people talk when they have issues. Usually with some idiot who has an overpriced degree, but they talk." So Tony hadn’t talked to Steve either. But Steve was the one ignoring him.

Steve didn't meet his eyes. He clutched his sketchbook to his side like it was his shield. "Tony, you have to understand it's been hard. The world... It's just, time passed and left me behind. And I've been trying to find my place in the world."

"So? Have you found it? I thought you were at a pretty good place before."

"Now I am, yeah."

"Hell of a way to break up with someone, Rogers." Tony briefly hoped that maybe he'd provoke Steve into something. Maybe he'd deny that they were breaking up, that it had been about identity, and now he knew who he was, and he could be with Tony again. Maybe he'd punch him, and they could have a good old-fashioned brawl. Hell, maybe Steve wouldn't even hold back. That sounded satisfying.

But Captain Steve Supposed-to-Be-Fucking-Perfect Rogers said, "I'm sorry, Tony. I know it’s my fault. I should talked with you before. Bruce has been bothering me about it, but I was afraid."

Fucking meddling Bruce. "You're really a wonder boy, Cap," Tony said. "You date someone, you blow them off, you have pity sex with them randomly weeks later, and then you still don't have the guts to say it's over. This is why no one fucked you before. What was her name,” he snapped his fingers for show, “Peggy? She probably knew you liked to take it up the ass, so that's why she never-"

"Shut up." Steve looked angry now. Properly angry. That was exactly what Tony was going for.

"Was I your first? Really? I’ve been wondering about that. Or did your whole squadron-"

Steve's hand came crashing down onto the table. "Shut up, Tony!" He wondered how close Steve was to hitting him. He was determined to find out.

"I bet you-"

"Stop it!" Steve broke the table this time. His shield skittered away, delicate machines crashed down, and Tony didn't know what else to say.

Steve took a deep breath before he spoke. "I should have told you earlier. And I shouldn't have slept with you that last time. I'm sorry. But it's over now, Tony, once and for all. I don't love you, and you can try to hurt me all you like, but it won't change a thing." He picked up his shield. "I'm sorry for the table and instruments. I'll pay for what I can."

"Don't bother. You couldn‘t afford any of it."

"Then I won't." Steve left, walking out with his shield.

Tony stomped on the broken machines. They crushed easily underfoot, and the shattering sound matched his mood.

DUM-E came up to him, but Tony said, "Get the fuck away, or I might do something I'll regret later." DUM-E didn't need a second warning.

Tony slid to the floor, his hand over his face. Time meant nothing to him now, and he didn't move until he was heaving dry sobs, his face, hands, and shirt soaked, snot dribbling from his nose, and his eyes burning.

Steve Motherfucking Rogers. With Tony's luck, he'd probably learned his fabulous relationship skills from Howard.

What the fuck had gone wrong? What had he done wrong? With Pepper, he knew where it hadn't worked. But he thought things had been perfect with Steve. The sex, the romance, the friendship, the partnership... But apparently Tony had managed to fuck that up, too.

Tony looked at the mess in front of him. He noted a dull pang of regret for having stomped on the instruments. They didn't deserve that. JARVIS would probably give him an earful later.

Then he noticed Steve's sketchbook on the floor. Tony reached for it and opened it up.

The first couple of pages were torn out. There was one half torn image, and Tony recognized it. It was the last time Steve had drawn him. Tony had been busy with the suit, and Steve had sat in the corner, sketching away. All that remained of the drawing was part of Tony's leg and DUM-E's base.

The next dozen pages weren't of any real interest. Things Steve saw around, that puzzled him or interested him in some way. Plants, people on the street, appliances, and modern art. Any other day, Tony would have laughed at a puppy Thor trying to play with a Chesire Cat-like Clint.

And then there was one of Natasha. It was excellent, and Tony almost didn't recognize her, not because of a lack of skill, but because she was sleeping somewhere, perhaps on a couch or armchair. Tony had never seen her so relaxed.

The next page was Natasha, too. This was posed, and her expression made it seem like she had found the experience uncomfortable.

But the sketches of her continued, and she appeared more and more at ease. Tony's heart broke all over again.

Steve had used to draw him like that.

Then he reached the nude portraits. At first, they were innocent enough, as innocent as nude sketches ever were. Then the post-coital glow was clear enough with Steve's talent.

The last image was unfinished. Natasha's face was neatly drawn in, but her body was still rough. She was smiling in the picture, clearly happy even with her hand partially obscuring her face. Tony wondered when they'd found the time.

He turned back to the nude portraits and looked at the dates. They were all dated before Tony and Steve had last had sex. Only the first nude was dated about the time Tony noticed Steve drifting away from him. Everything before was when he still thought they had been happy.

Tony Stark, playboy, ladies man, heart breaker, here he was, his own heart broken. He wondered how people put themselves back together again. Physical damage was easy; his arc reactor proved that.

But Tony didn't know any technology that could fix him right now.

He threw the notebook, and when it hit the wall, it flew open and landed face down, crushing the pages. 

DUM-E approached him then with a concerned whir. He reached up and stroked DUM-E. "You never liked him that much anyway, did you?" It wasn't true. Tony knew DUM-E had adored Steve, just like Tony did. But DUM-E whirred its agreement, and Tony smiled. JARVIS dimmed the lights and pumped up Tony's play list. The hard rock filled the space and Tony could feel the bass through the floor.

"Come on, you." DUM-E nestled itself over Tony's shoulder, and he kept a hand on it. "Thanks," he said. 

JARVIS didn't say anything. DUM-E hummed.


End file.
